We Are Still Here

by Jimmy Bird

  We decided that it would be easier to ignore the car pileup on the service road and continue down 29th street until we could find a road that would take us straight to I-40. Maybe, Eastern Avenue would be the safest road to take. It was the closest northbound road to us.

  Danny shifted the SUV into reverse and slowly began to back up when we noticed that it had been a trap after all. Well, a failed attempt at a trap when we decided not to go forward. Directly behind us were two people with guns, but they didn’t look like Robert’s or Kevin’s people.

  Danny yelled, “Get down!”

  He gunned it in reverse. One of the people, who looked like a younger homeless, grungy looking woman stepped out of the way towards the passenger side and fired as we drove by. The other person, who looked like a homeless, grungy older guy wasn’t as lucky.

  The SUV ran directly over the guy as he stood like an immovable object behind us and fired his gun. The bullets from the guy’s gun hit the back window but didn’t do us any harm. His bullets did hit our supplies though. We barely heard or felt anything as we hit and ran the guy over.

  The woman on the other hand, had aimed a little better or at least that’s the way it appeared. Most of her bullets hit the doors, but a few hits and shattered the windows. One of those bullets hit Austin in the back part of his right shoulder area. He instantly screamed out in pain.

  While everyone else (shamefully, me included) was ducking for cover, Austin had used his body to cover JoJo. He sacrificed his body to save her.

  Danny yelled out, “Who got hit?”

  Austin replied, “I did dad, but I’m okay. It’s not that bad.”

  Even with shots still being fired at us, Danny slammed on the brakes and turned his concerned attention towards his son. You could see the blood beginning to soak through Austin’s already stained shirt.

  My sister immediately turned around to the glass covered supplies and began digging. She was looking for anything that would help stop the bleeding and hopefully find something that would help clean the wound.

  When she turned back around with a stained shirt, she asked Bobby, “Can you look for the half bottle of peroxide that we grabbed from the Warehouse?”

  She looked down at the shirt and immediately apologized to both, Danny and Austin, “I’m sorry, but this was the cleanest thing I could find.”

  Danny looked ready to come unglued, but Austin just smiled.

  Austin told her, “It’s alright. When we stop in Midwest City to look for supplies anyway. Maybe, we can look for some clean clothes.”

  You could see the pain in his face. He was trying to act tough as he fought to keep the pain at bay. He was right about the supplies and clean clothes though. We needed to find those things and fast.

  Trying to lighten the mood, I said, “You know, you’re a pretty smart kid.”

  My sister pressed the shirt on Austin’s bloody back, trying to stop the bleeding. Austin grimaced in obvious pain.

  My sister told him, “I know it hurts, but try to relax your back muscles, if you can.”

  Bobby turned back around with a small, almost empty bottle of peroxide and handed it my sister, “Sorry. This was all I could find.”

  My sister took the bottle and stated, “This won’t be enough. Can you continue looking for the other one?”

  My sister pulled the soaked stained shirt away from the already blood covered back of Austin. You could tell that he was in extreme pain as he held his breath, trying to be tough without making a sound. You could hear a small whimper come from him.

  Concerned, my sister told Bobby, “Can you hurry up and look for the other bottle of peroxide? I also need more shirts, preferably the cleanest ones you can find.”

  She leaned over and carefully examined the wound. She didn’t see an exit hole, which meant that the bullet was still lodged in there. She knew that if she didn’t get the bullet out, he was going to die from poisoning or worse.

  Danny was becoming frantic as he watched helplessly. He was understandably worried about his son.

  He began yelling at my sister, “Tina! Do something!”

  I looked over at Danny and calmly told him, “You need to calm down. She is doing everything she can to help him, but it looks like we’re going to have to get the bullet out soon or he could be in some real trouble.”

  Just then, we heard the woman scream from the front of the SUV, which caused us to slowly shift our attention in that direction. It was hard to tell, but it looked like the woman had dropped her gun as she had rushed towards the downed man. It looked like the guy was trying to turn over onto his stomach, but only his upper body seemed to be moving.

  Without saying a word, Danny shifted it into drive and pushed down hard onto the gas pedal. I turned towards him to ask what he was doing, but the angry focused look in his eyes told me everything that I needed to know.

  The front of the SUV plowed into her left side just as she bent down towards the man. We could hear her scream in pain as the front bumper made contact. It looked like Danny wanted to make sure she didn’t get back up by running her over with the driver side tires. It felt like we hit a speed bump on the left side.

  Danny slammed on the brakes when we were about ten feet from them. I look through the back, shot out window and noticed that the guy had stopped moving, but the girl’s arms were flopping around. She screamed in pain as her head flipped from her left side to her right side and back again. The left side of her head was bleeding and covered in dirt. Danny shifted in into reverse but kept his foot on the brake.

  With a sadistic looking smile, he said “Would you look at that? I think we need to put her out of her misery.”

  Without waiting for a response, he shifted it back to reverse and moved his right foot from the brake pedal to the gas pedal. We all sat there speechless, except for Austin.

  He pleaded, “Dad! No! Don’t do it! Please stop!”

  Austin’s plea fell on deaf ears. Danny wanted to kill those responsible for shooting his son and maybe, release a little built up frustration from losing everyone else he had ever cared about.

  He laughed hysterically when we hit the bodies and went over them as if we once again hit a speed bump. He slammed on the brakes just as soon as we cleared the bodies and you could see them just past the hood. He shifted it back to park, but left it running and opened his door. He kept an eye on the couple as he slowly got out of the vehicle and walked around the car door. It looked like he intentionally left the door open just in case we needed to make a quick getaway.

  “What are you doing?”

  He didn’t respond. I looked from him to the couple and back again.

  I asked a little louder, “Danny? What are you doing?”

  This time he stopped walking and slowly turned his head towards me, it looked as if he was trying to keep the couple in his peripheral vision. The look in his eyes had returned to normal.

  He seemed like his old self once again as he stated, “We could really use their guns.”

  He was correct, we could use whatever weapons we could get our hands on. When we were forced to quickly leave my father-n-law’s land, we had abandoned most of our weapons. I admit, we really needed those guns. Guns, just like ammo had become a scarce commodity.

  I reluctantly agreed, “You’re right. We need those guns, but I should go with you.”

  He laughed and stated, “I’m only going to grab the guns and come back.”

  He looked over at his son, “Son, hold on. I’ll be right back.”

  Austin looked back at his dad, “Don’t worry about me, dad. I’m going to be just fine.”

  Danny kind of rolled his eyes at his son’s response before turning back around to face the couple.

  I asked Danny once again, “Do you want me to go with you?”

  Without even looking at me, he shouted, “No!”

  I watched as he began walking towards the couple. Without thinking, I slowly opened my door. I began to have a bad feeling in the pit of m
y stomach and wanted to be ready just in case something happened.

  I lowered my right foot onto the ground just as Danny made it to the couple. I slowly shifted my weight from the seat onto my foot when we heard a loud gun shot. I watched in horror as Danny grabbed his stomach area and fell face first onto the couple.

  My sister began screaming, “What was that?”

  Austin followed it up by screaming, “Where’s my dad?”

  I didn’t respond to any of the questions because I was already out of the SUV and sprinting towards Danny. When I was within arm’s reach of Danny, I dropped to my knees. I reached out to his shoulder and slowly pulled him towards me.

  Thankfully, he responded, “I’m alright. It’s just a graze.”

  He then glanced over and said, “That bitch just caught me by surprise is all!”

  I followed his gaze and saw why he fell over. He had stuck his knife through her chest. By that time, my sister and Bobby had arrived. Their weapons were out and ready for an attack. I looked behind them and Seth and Austin were still in the car with JoJo. Their guns were out, ready to protect her at a moment’s notice. Danny started to sit up, but immediately stopped and winced in pain.

  He reached down and touched his right side with his hand. When he pulled his hand back, it had blood all on it.

  Danny smiled as he joked, “I guess that its a little more serious than I thought.”

  I responded with my own inappropriate joke, “I guess if everyone insists on getting shot then we really are going to need more clean clothes and medical supplies.”

  Danny chuckled as he glanced back towards the couple. My initial observations about the pair seemed correct. The lady (if you could call her that) looked like a homeless young teenage girl. The guy on the other hand, looked like a middle-aged homeless man. They were both wearing filthy clothes that didn’t fit. His looked way to small while hers looked too big. Both were covered in dirt and grime. I assumed that the girl was the guy’s daughter or something.

  Danny began to roll over onto his back and wheezed out loud from the pain.

  I leaned over and asked, “Are you sure that you’re alright?”

  He responded, “I’m fine. The pain just caught me a little off guard.”

  He began to turn so he could get his knees under him when he stopped moving. My sister and Bobby look questioning at me, but I could only shrug. I knew what they wanted to know. They wanted to know if he was healthy enough to move because we needed to leave. Being out in the open left us vulnerable to another attack. I looked back at Danny and noticed that he still hadn’t moved. Hesitantly, I leaned towards him and touched his shoulder. He jumped as if he had been asleep.

  I asked him once again, “Danny? Are you sure that you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, I am. You just need to give me a second to catch my breath.”

  Just then we heard an angry feminine scream coming from the direction of the SUV. We looked around and saw two more people, a taller looking female and a shorter looking male. Both were wearing similar looking clothing to the first two we had just encountered. They were standing on opposite sides of the SUV with their guns pointed towards our children. The odd thing was that even though their weapons were aimed at our kids, they were facing us.

  With an angry expression, the lady began yelling something that I had a hard time understanding her. It sounded like she said, “We had just killed her husband and daughter.”

  With an ‘oh shit expression’ on my face, I looked down at the two bodies. I had a bad feeling that things were about to go from bad to worse for us.

  I quickly looked up at my sister and Bobby. They had their guns aimed at the mother and the boy, who I’m assuming was the lady’s son.

  I pleaded with my sister and Bobby, “Hold your fire. They have their guns pointed at our kids.”

  Danny tried to turn his body around to see what the trouble was. The lady must have seen Danny move and thought that he was trying something because she quickly turned her gun towards us and fired.

  She kept the gun pointed in our direction and told us, “That was just a warning shot. The next one would be at you. Now, lower your weapons and we won’t harm the children.”

  I could see that we were at her mercy and told my sister and Bobby, “Lower your guns.”

  My sister looked over at me and was about to protest. Before she could even say anything, we heard two quick shots go off.

  My sister and Bobby immediately dropped to their stomachs. Danny didn’t react as quickly, but still managed to get onto his stomach. As for me, all I had to do was roll forward and I was on my stomach.

  I had my gun out quickly, ready to aim at the threat. I was expecting more gun fire, but none came. Curious, I looked directly at the SUV and received a shock. Laying on the ground were the motionless bodies of the lady and the boy. Their bodies were laying in such a way that their feet were almost perpendicular to the SUV. Sort of like an abstract lower case ‘t’.

  The SUV’s doors slowly opened. I watched in amazement as Seth and Austin carefully got out, their guns aimed downward towards the bodies. Seth slowly circled around the boy while Austin moved around the lady. You could visibly see how much pain Austin was in by the way his right shoulder slumped down. I was amazed that he was able to use his right side at all.

  Danny screamed out, “Yeah! That’s why you don’t mess with a Turner!”

  I looked over to see Danny slowly getting to his feet. He was beaming with pride and immediately began walking slowly towards his son. His posture was slightly bent to his right side as he used his forearm to press up against his wound.

  My sister on the other hand wasn’t as excited. She looked over at her son with concern in her eyes as she slowly climbed to her feet. She knew that her son’s innocence was now truly gone.

  I was deep in thought about the whole situation as I managed to slowly stand up. I had mixed feelings about it all. I mean, I could see my sister’s point, but whether she liked it or not, this was the world that we now lived in. Seth needed to be ready to take someone’s life if he had too. The only issue now was to know when it was okay to take that person’s life.

  I looked down at the two closest bodies and wondered if we had to take theirs. I knew that they had initiated the confrontation, but did they have to die? Did they? I guess it didn’t matter too much because after what had happened at the Warehouse with Kevin and Bruce, we weren’t taking any chances.

  I know this sounds a little cold, but without a second thought, I reached down and began searching their clothes. They no longer needed what was in their pockets and we needed supplies, such as ammo or whatever else was on their person.

  When I was done searching, I reached over and picked up their guns. Unfortunately, I didn’t find much in the way of supplies and that bothered me. I began to stand up when a thought dawned on me. How come I didn’t see them with any bags? It didn’t even look like they happened upon us by accident. Now that I think about it, it looked like an ambush from the start. If that was true, then they had to have a camp nearby. The only question was, where was their camp? I began walking back towards the SUV, my eyes were facing downwards.

  I was deep in thought when I heard Austin scream, “Dad!”

  I looked up in time to see Danny collapse to the ground. My sister and Bobby were already sprinting his way.

  By the time I arrived, everyone had already surrounded Danny. He gasped out loud as he fought for air.

  He struggled, “Stop worrying. I’m fine.”

  But he wasn’t fine. Not by a long shot.

  My sister dropped to her knees, trying to see the extent of his wound. She tried to move his arm, but he fought her. For some reason, he didn’t want her to examine him. After a few minutes of resistance, he finally gave up and moved his arm. My sister leaned in to get a closer look but couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing.

  His bloody shirt had started to stick to his skin as the surrounding area around the wound began
to slowly dry up. The wound itself, was still gushing blood. So, it made it extremely difficult to tell what kind of damage had been done. His face was already turning pale from the loss of blood.

  We really needed to find some medical supplies and fast. Unfortunately, we couldn’t go back to the Warehouse. We had set the silent alarm to go off whenever someone entered, trapping them inside. Besides, we had taken whatever few medical supplies that were there (which wasn’t a lot).

  It left us just two possible options. We could either make our way to Midwest City (which used to be a 10-15-minute drive on the highway with regular traffic on a good day) or we could go search for the family’s camp looking for supplies. Odds were that it was near by.

  If we went directly to Midwest City, who knew what kind of condition it was in. For all we knew, it could be overrun by zombies, people, or be completely empty of supplies. Personally, I didn’t think Danny had that kind of time. Even if we did make it to Midwest City in time, we still had to search for the supplies.

  Our only other option was to search the area for the family’s place of sanctuary, their hiding place. I mean, it had to be somewhere close. Besides, how hard could it be to find?

  I didn’t see a vehicle or anymore survivors with them. So, it meant that the place had to be within walking distance. There were a few old industrial businesses around that they could’ve hidden in, but we had gutted those for resources when we stayed at the Warehouse. There were also a few old fast food places, but the food would be old and rotten by now. That left only the old cheap trucker stop type of hotels located right off the highway. It was as good a place as any to start looking.

  I reached over and grabbed Danny’s left arm and motioned for Bobby to grab the other. Together, we carefully lifted him up to his feet.

  I told JoJo, “Look through whatever cleanish clothes we have left and grab something to help stop the bleeding.”

  Without hesitation, she turned and rushed towards the SUV. She returned within seconds with a couple of old dirty shirts.